F-Secure warns of Symbian 'Trojan'
30 March 2006
A leading security firm has warned that a commercial application intended for the Symbian operating system (OS) is actually a Trojan and a type of spyware.
On the company's website F-Secure says the application Flexispy.A "records details of voice call information, SMS information and contents, and sends the details to a remote server."
FlexiSpy.A captures call logs, text messages and mobile Internet activity, among other things and was released at the beginning of March for $49.95. The application is marketed by Thailand-based Vervata as a tool to monitor kids and wandering partners.
Data captured by the application is then sent to Vervata's servers and is accessible to customers via a Web site.
According to F-Secure the program hides from Symbian's built-in process menu and does not provide any visible user interface or icon, leaving the user unaware of its presence.
F-Secure's Jarno Niemela wrote on the company's corporate blog: "What makes this interesting is that Flexispy.A is a trojan spy written by a company for commercial reasons. The company claims that it's a useful tool for catching a cheating spouse. By installing the application on the phone they can monitor to whom the victim is calling and what SMS messages he or she is sending. The company even claims that Flexispy is not a trojan.
"However, this application installs itself without any kind of indication as to what it is. And when it is installed on the phone it completely hides itself from the user. So the application could easily be used by malware installing it as part of its payload, or a hacker could simply send it to a victim over Bluetooth and trust that there are enough curious people to install it."
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